Make Your Own Awesome Wrist Roller – Homemade DIY Forearm Roller

How to Make your Own Wrist Roller

Build Powerful Forearms with your Own Wrist Roller
Build Powerful Forearms with your Own DIY Wrist Roller

A wrist roller is an awesomely effective device that can help you build a powerful grip and impressive forearms. It is also a fairly easy DIY project that can be homemade using items you probably already have around the house.

The wrist roller is, in my opinion one of most effective forearm developers ever devised. It is not a glamorous piece of bodybuilding equipment, and you don’t need to use much weight, but once you try it you will understand why it is so effective!

Homemade Forearm Roller vs. Store Bought Wrist Roller

Honestly, this is such a simple device that it does not really matter which way you go. I love the fact that I made my own wrist roller, and it only took maybe a half hour to gather the supplies in my garage and put it together.

However, if you do not have these items laying around, or just do not have access to a drill, then an inexpensive forearm roller from Amazon is all you need! Here is one that is highly rated, and one that has additional grip options: 

If you want to know how to make your own forearm roller, here are the step-by-step instructions:

DIY Wrist Roller Supply List

  • Broom handle, wooden dowel or a piece of 1″ or 1.5″ PVC pipe about 18″ long. The thicker the handle, the more challenging the exercise will be!
  • Length of sturdy rope 5-6 feet long
  • Some weights. Barbell plates or dumb bells will work. A reader also thought a jug of water will also work if you do not have any weights. This is a terrific idea. A gallon of water weighs in at about 8 lbs (3.63 kilograms) and you will be able to easily decrease the weight if needed.
Home Made Wrist roller
Home Made Wrist roller

Tools You Will Need

  • electric drill
  • 1/4″ wood bit

Instructions to Make the DIY Forearm Roller

  1. Drill a 1/4″ hole through the center of the dowel or PVC pipe.
  2. Take one end of a 5-foot piece of rope and feed it through the hole in the dowel and tie in a nice big knot on the other and so it can’t be pulled back through.
  3. Tie either a small dumbbell or a 5 – 10 pound barbell plate to the other end of the rope.
  4. Adjust the length of the rope so that when you hold the dowel in your hands and extend your hands straight out in front of your body, the dumbbell or barbell plate is just barely touching the floor.

To make the “deluxe” model, get a small carabiner and tie it to the end of the rope. This way you can quickly add or remove weight by simply feeding the carabiner through the plate (Olympic plates will be needed for this option due to larger hole) and clipping it to the rope.

Now you have made yourself your very own wrist roller exercise device!

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Modifications

You can experiment with the handle by wrapping it with duct tape or bicycle handlebar tape to make it more comfortable on the hands. Also, you can try different diameters of pipe. The greater the diameter, the more challenging it will be!

Start with a relatively light weight, such as 10 lbs. This sounds like it will be too light, but trust me. This it not an easy exercise to perform and that is why it is incredibly effective. When the forearms get fatigued, the pain is intense!

How to Use the DIY Wrist Roller

Stand with the roller in your hands and arms extended straight out in front of you. The weight should be on the floor of hanging just above the floor. Now, keeping your arms straight out if front the entire time, twist your hands in order to wrap the rope around the handle. Keep doing this until the entire rope is wrapped around the handle and weight is all the way up as high as it will go.

Now, reverse the twisting of your hands to slowly lower the weight back to the starting position.

That was one rep. Do at least 3 or 4 reps. If this is too easy, add weight so you are barely able to complete 3 or 4 reps.

Do this at least 3 or 4 times per week, resting a day in between and adding weight as your strength increases.

Obviously, make this the last exercise in your routine, as you won’t be able to hold onto anything afterwards!!

Good luck and be sure to get at least 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight per day, EVERY DAY to give your growing muscles the building blocks they need to become huge!

Thanks for reading my tutorial on how to make your own wrist roller. See my article on Forearm Training and  my other tutorials such as How to Make your own TRX straps.

If you don’t want to make your own, you can get a wrist roller pretty cheap at this Amazon link.

6 thoughts on “Make Your Own Awesome Wrist Roller – Homemade DIY Forearm Roller”

  1. That is neat! I have to say that I love to make things my own and I sure do have all of those Item around the house. I am even thinking that I can maybe use a water gallon to use in stead of the weight. That is awesome. Thanks for the list of tools and how to make it. I am going to tell my husband to make one! Thanks for sharing. 

    Reply
    • Nuttanee, thanks for the comment and for reading my article on how to make a wrist roller. It is super easy to make and is such a great exercise for anyone that wants to improve their grip strength! 

      A water jug is such a fantastic idea, I think I will mention that in the article!

      Dave

      Reply
  2. Nice tips on making a wrist roller, The wrist roller is a device designed for strengthening the forearm muscles together in arolling-pulling motion. It consists of a bar with a cord or rope attached, which the user rolls and unrolls. This is resisted by the weight of a mass at the bottom of the cord. So if you need one and you couldn’t get it you can use these tips to make one! 

    Reply
  3. Hello Dave, thank you so much for this very detailed descriptive post on how to make a wrist roller, i must commend your very conscious, calculated and delibrate effort in putting this together, I never knew that making a write roller could be this easy, I certainly making one for myself, thanks for sharing, this is really helpful.

    Reply

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